KCRag Forum

KCtoBrooklyn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:09 pm On the CPC Docket for May 5th:

–Project Diode & Project Velvet –Request to rezone
approximately 882 acres generally located at the northwest quadrant of MO Hwy

169 and Interstate 435 from Districts R-80 (Residential 80) and AG-R (Agricultural-
Residential) to District MPD (Master Planned Development) and approve a

development plan for a data center.

“Golden Plains Technology Park” is the official name.
Diode Ventures (Black Veach) is the applicant.
6.75 million SqFt of data centers.
$2 billion construction cost.

Hike + Bike trail along perimeter.

https://www.diodeventures.com/gptp

That would become one of the largest data center complexes in the world, though this list is a bit dated...
https://www.racksolutions.com/news/data ... ers-world/

Am surprised they don't go underground given the much lower cooling costs and more tornado resistant.
Could bring close to 500 high paying employees.

One thing that KC and STL have going for it as data center hubs are major central points for internet longhaul backbone routes. KC has about a dozen longhaul carriers...
http://www.missouripartnership.com/wp-c ... ters-2.pdf

earthling wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2020 2:56 am That would become one of the largest data center complexes in the world, though this list is a bit dated...
https://www.racksolutions.com/news/data ... ers-world/

Am surprised they don't go underground given the much lower cooling costs and more tornado resistant.
Could bring close to 500 high paying employees.

Good point about caves. I wonder if the shared space makes it a no go? It looks like these people want to be isolated by great distances and behind many walls. Another issues could be the fact that the caves like to leak

^There are already data centers in Hunt Midwest so they apparently can manage leaks. Seems lower risk than getting hit by tornado, and major energy savings.

Looking at their other DC project in Virginia, could take a year to start construction and 5+ years to build out entirely, though first building could open in 2-3 years. Would expect them to target Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc. And Google may decide to use this instead of the one near Hunt Midwest.

earthling wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 8:49 am Would expect them to target Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, etc. And Google may decide to use this instead of the one near Hunt Midwest.

This was posted by hobo digital on urbanstl.

"^Yes, quite a few DCs in KC/STL already but not massive ones targeting FAANG companies and big 3 cloud providers. KC has an AWS Direct Connect node (11th/Grand) and many Amazon warehouses but no AWS DCs yet in KC or STL. AWS doesn't have any 'regions' between OH and W Coast so could see them possibly establishing a new one out of this complex. Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure also have catching up to do with AWS so could see them considering this complex too at some point.

There are only a few DCs in world over 6M sqft, though there could be more by the time this is built"

^Yours truly.

We need to poach the amazon logistics back offices

earthling wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 8:49 am ^There are already data centers in Hunt Midwest so they apparently can manage leaks. Seems lower risk than getting hit by tornado, and major energy savings.

They will most likely be designed to withstand a tornado. One unmarked data center not far from these near KCI was designed to withstand a 737 landing on it and not shut down.

I was told 5 years ago that near the airport is becoming a popular location for data centers as its an area that has access to multiple power grids and multiple fiber grids, and I think multiple gas lines for their backup generators so companies that want their systems to never go offline want to go there which is why multiple big banking/financial institutions have already located their data centers in this area of KC.

Multibillion-dollar KC data center would be one of world's largest
https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... -park.html

Fully built, each phase would involve an estimated capital investment of $1.6 billion to $2 billion, Ashlynn Horras, development project manager with Diode Ventures, told the Kansas City Business Journal.

Each data center building is expected to hire 30 employees on average, which Horras said would be a "core team" of high-paying IT jobs, plus support staff in security, maintenance and landscaping.

She said the developer also would grant an easement for the city to build multi-use trails around the park's perimeter once officials connect their existing trail network to the property.
...
Golden Plains Technology Park is positioned to "support the growing demand of data, cloud and other hosting services" while "(boosting) the economy with increased business from Fortune 100 companies," according to Diode's submission.
...
Companies such as Apple, Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft own and operate such hyperscale centers.
...
Diode plans to finish its rezoning process before beginning to review incentives for its data center, she said, "but then we would be looking to the data center projects that the Kansas City area markets for their incentives."
...
In July 2019, the Port Authority of Kansas City authorized issuing privately backed Chapter 68 bonds for Google's $600 million data center in Hunt Midwest Business Park, amounting to as much as $25 billion over 35 years.

The City Plan Commission gave Diode Ventures LLC the green light for its 882.5-acre development plan for Golden Plains Technology Park, at the northwest corner of Interstate 435 and U.S. Highway 169.

Diode Ventures will discuss incentives for the data center at a later time, Hardin said, noting that the specific requests would be based on each operator tenant's site needs.

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ssion.html

one of 5 construction lead links for phase 1.project in schematic design. https://www.construction.com/projects/d ... ilding-1-2

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... eatch.html'

Plans call for the park to accommodate 6.75 million square feet of data center space — nine times the combined square footage of the 19 largest area data centers now on the Kansas City Business Journal’s List. Put another way, each of the three planned phases will have nearly double the 106 megawatts of combined capacity of the 19 data centers on the List.

Golden Plains Technology Park is planned for 882 acres at the northwest corner of Interstate 435 and U.S. Highway 169 in Kansas City’s Northland. The City Plan Commission recommended approval of Diode Ventures’ development plan and rezoning on June 16. The City Council is scheduled to review the plans at its July 9 meeting.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... n-missouri

Sounds like the massive new power line project in North Platte/Souther Bucannan will include internet transmission lines. This article only mentions local broadband connections but I would think that trans-national lines could one day plow down this corridor.

Invenergy is also offering to provide broadband internet service to rural Missouri communities along the same rights of way that the high-voltage, direct-current transmission line will require.

Neat how they turned US 61 north of St. Louis and State Route 63 in Indiana into interstates.

Not Gold Plains Specific: Amazon adding a local zone in KC.

AWS Local Zones are a type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places AWS compute, storage, database, and other select services close to large population, industry, and IT centers.

Prior to today, customers could use AWS Local Zones in Los Angeles to deliver single-digit latency access to applications for end-users located in the Southern California area. However, customers outside of Southern California also want this capability for end-users in other cities across the US.

With today’s announcement, customers can now use new AWS Local Zones in Houston, Boston, and Miami to run AWS compute, storage, database, analytics, and machine learning services, and deliver applications with single-digit millisecond latencies to local end-users nearby. With an additional 12 Local Zones launching in 2021 in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, and Seattle, customers will be able to deliver ultra-low latency applications to end-users in cities across the US. AWS Local Zones are managed and supported by AWS, meaning customers no longer need to incur the expense or effort of procuring, operating, and maintaining data centers or co-location facilities in various cities to support ultra-low latency applications. AWS Local Zones provide customers a high-bandwidth, secure connection between their local workloads and those running in the closest AWS Region. This gives customers the ability to use the same AWS APIs and tools to run latency-sensitive workloads nearby to end-users, while seamlessly connecting to the full range of services in the AWS Region. To learn more about AWS Local Zones, visit:

Not surprising KC got one but curious STL didn't. Wonder where located in KC. If the mega data center campus project happens, wouldn't be surprising to see a full blown new AWS region setup in KC, which also acts as failover backup for other regions.

earthling wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:17 am Not surprising KC got one but curious STL didn't. Wonder where located in KC. If the mega data center campus project happens, wouldn't be surprising to see a full blown new AWS region setup in KC, which also acts as failover backup for other regions.

There were a few tech cities that didn’t get one so no surprise about a relatively random city like STL. Kind of surprised about KC other than the large Cerner contract + proximity to national lines. Hopefully data centers bring office jobs one day.

normalthings wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 12:03 pm

earthling wrote: ↑Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:17 am Not surprising KC got one but curious STL didn't. Wonder where located in KC. If the mega data center campus project happens, wouldn't be surprising to see a full blown new AWS region setup in KC, which also acts as failover backup for other regions.

There were a few tech cities that didn’t get one so no surprise about STL. Hopefully data centers being office jobs one day.

In my opinion, STL is hardly a tech city. We're more focused on pharmaceutical, crop-science, and geospatial intelligence stuff now.

Their locations probably are more based on where their customers are than anything.